Holographic hermeneutics

In defense of receiving, rather than “correcting,” confusing readings in scripture.

In Judges 2, the angel of Yahweh pronounces judgment over Israel. They were to make no covenant with the dwellers of this land, but rather tear down their altars. In his words:

Ye have not hearkened unto my voice — what is this ye have done? (Judges 2:2)

He then pronounces three judgments, the second of which in the Hebrew reads literally that the Canaanites “shall be unto your sides” (v. 3).

This reading is obscured by most Bibles, because they try to “make sense” of this. They do this one of two ways:

1. By reinterpreting the Hebrew along the lines of “they shall be a snare to you;”

2. By assuming that the word “thorns” has been accidentally left out.

The NET’s translation note is representative (emphasis added):

The meaning of the Hebrew word צִדִּים (tsiddim) is uncertain in this context. It may be related to an Akkadian cognate meaning “snare.” If so, a more literal translation would be “they will become snares to you.” Normally the term in question means “sides,” but this makes no sense here. On the basis of Num 33:55 some suggest the word for “thorns” has been accidentally omitted. If this word is added, the text would read, “they will become [thorns] in your sides” (cf. NASB, NIV, NLT).

But is it true that “they shall be unto your sides” makes no sense here, as the NET boldly claims? Numbers 33:55-56 reads:

And if ye do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be, those whom ye let remain of them, shall be for pricks in your eyes, and for thorns in your sides, and they shall distress you on the land in which ye are dwelling, and it shall be, as I thought to do unto them—I shall do unto you. (Nu 33:55–56)

In Numbers, the emphasis is on the Canaanites being a curse; pricks and thorns, which are what God caused to grow out of the ground on account of Adam’s disobedience. Israel, the new Adam — if it fails to properly guard and serve the new garden that God is giving them — will also find thorns and thistles springing up from the land. But here in Judges, the language is abbreviated, and says that the Canaanites will be “unto their sides.”

To see this as a corruption of the text, however, strikes me as highly unimaginative. Surely there is a superior explanation: this is a holographic use of language.

As hologram stickers capture more than one perspective of an image, so this sentence, through careful word selection, captures more than one idea. By omitting the word thorns, we are forced to slow down and ask what it means to be “unto the sides.” Like much of scripture, the angel’s judgment is not supposed to be a clear “lens” — it is supposed to a prism, revealing multiple meanings through a single fittingly-shaped component.

In this case, it reveals at least four meanings:

1. Most obviously, as mentioned above, the Canaanites will be a curse like thorns, per Numbers 33:55.

2. Another answer is that the Canaanites will be a kind of helpmeet: a corrupted Eve at the side of this new Adam. Not only is this implicit in the pattern of Israel and the promised land as a recapitulation of Adam and Eden, but the explicit judgment of the angel is with regard to illicit covenantal unions — which, we learn in Judges 3:6, especially involves marriage alliances.

3. These illicit covenantal unions are also a kind of unequal yoking contrary to the law (Dt 22:10; 2 Cor 6:14) — and having chosen to be so yoked, Israel will not be able to break free as the Caananites lead them astray.

4. Finally, the Canaanites are presented as a kind of parasite, like worms that might be found in the sides of an animal — an idea already expressly evoked four times in the immediately preceding text, where it speaks of them living “in the inwards” of Israel — the same term used for the innards of an animal (Jdg 1:29, 30, 32, 33; cf. e.g. Lev 1:9).

It is not always the case that a difficult reading is a result of textual corruption or lost cognates. In fact, it may more often be that a difficult reading is a result of a lack of appreciation for the imaginative way that God communicates — and a lack of willingness to submit ourselves to it.